Lifeboat Foundation

What would it take to go from a manned human return to the Moon to a self-sustaining colony?

When we look at modern society today, there is practically no city that is self-sufficient. Metals are produced in one part of the world, paper somewhere else, cell phones yet somewhere else. The list could go on.

But this situation exists because no city truly needs to be self-sufficient. People can purchase goods from wherever they can be produced at the best price and quality.

So, are there no places on Earth that are self-sufficient? Actually, there are.

Continue reading “From Lunar Return to the First Colony” »

EOH events are events that cause the irreversible termination of humanity. They are not events that start the physical destruction of humanity (that would be too late), but fundamental, non-threatening and inconspicuous events that eventually lead to the irreversible physical destruction of humanity. Using nations and civilizations I explain how.

(1) Fundamental: These events have to be fundamental to the survival of the human species or else they cannot negatively impact the foundation of humanity’s existence.

On a much smaller scale drought and war can and have destroyed nations and civilizations. However, that is not always the case. For example, it is still not know what caused the demise of the Mayan civilization.

The act of war can lead to the irreversible destruction of a nation or civilization, but the equivalent EOH event lay further back in history, and can only be answered by the questions who and why.

Continue reading “What are End Of Humanity (EOH) events?” »

Technology is as Human Does
When one of the U.S. Air Force’s top future strategy guys starts dorking out on how we’ve gotta at least begin considering what to do when a progressively decaying yet apocalyptically belligerent sun begins BBQing the earth, attention is payed. See, none of the proposed solutions involve marinade or species-level acquiescence, they involve practical discussion on the necessity for super awesome technology on par with a Kardeshev Type II civilization (one that’s harnessed the energy of an entire solar system).

Because Not if, but WHEN the Earth Dies, What’s Next for Us?
Head over to Kurzweil AI and have a read of Lt. Col. Peter Garretson’s guest piece. There’s perpetuation of the species stuff, singularity stuff, transhumanism stuff, space stuff, Mind Children stuff, and plenty else to occupy those of us with borderline pathological tech obsessions.

[BILLION YEAR PLAN — KURZWEIL AI]
[U.S. AIR FORCE BLUE HORIZONS FUTURE STUFF PROJECT]

Many are prepared but only one was called. That is how I would sum up Astronaut Neil Armstrong’s life.

This reminds me of the Bible verse, Matthew 22:14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” What an honor.

The New York Times described him as a “ … quiet, private man, at heart an engineer and crack test pilot …”

I was very moved on hearing of his final journey, and I don’t know why. I was 11 years old when I watched him walk on the moon, on black & white TV, in a small town in what was then considered the backwaters of Peninsula Malaysia.

Continue reading “A Tribute to Neil Armstrong” »

Tim Ventura told me 2 days ago that American Antigravity is back. Congratulations Tim. Yours was a very popular site and it was a loss when it went dark.

Welcome back Tim. I look forward to more scoops from American Antigravity.

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Continue reading “American Antigravity is Back!” »

I am very pleased to have received an email from Dr. Takaaki Musha of the Technical Research and Development Institute, Advanced Science-Technology Research Organization, Yokohama, Japan.

Dr. Musha and Prof. Mario J. Pinheiro will be publishing a book on electrogravitics including the electromagnetic propulsion systems, titled, “Physics of the Zero Point Field and Its Applications to Advanced Technology”, Nova Science Pub Inc. Publication date is Sept.25, 2012 (tomorrow).

To quote Dr. Musha:

“Space-time in a vacuum has generally been viewed as a transparent and ubiquitous empty continuum within which physical events take place. However quantum field theory and quantum electrodynamics views the vacuum as the sum total of all zero-point fluctuations of the vacuum electromagnetic field, arising from the continuous creation and annihilation of virtual particle pairs. It is this latter more contemporary view that is, for the first time, more fully explored in text form with Physics of the Zero Point Field. The scope of applications in this book range from the Casimir effect, the variation in zero-point energy at the boundaries of a region observable in nano-scale devices, to ideas for a proposed inertial drive as first described by Puthoff.”

Continue reading “Physics of the Zero Point Field and its Applications to Advanced Technology” »

Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland co-authored the paper Are Black Hole Starships Possible? (http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803) that suggested that one could use Small Black Holes to propel starships close to the velocity of light for interstellar travel. To give them credit, they stated that this is at the “edge of possibility” and would only be possible in the very distant future:

“The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether it is possible to build artificial BHs of the appropriate size, and to employ them in powerplants and starships. The conclusion we reach is that it is just on the edge of possibility to do so, but that quantum gravity effects, as yet unknown, could change the picture either way… Many questions which arise in this program lead to calculations in general relativity which have not been done. Whatever the other merits of our proposal, we are confident it will pose many interesting problems for classical and quantum relativity.”

Note, BH = Black Holes

That is it. Crane & Westmoreland were presenting an academic exercise to pose “many interesting problems for classical and quantum relativity”.

Continue reading “Debunking the Black Hole Interstellar Drive” »

There four camps that comprise the present day interstellar travel community and only one camp will succeed.

The first camp, the conventional rocket camp, believes it is possible using conventional rockets (chemical, ion, nuclear or antimatter) to realize interstellar travel to our nearest star Alpha Centauri. One of the problems is the costs, estimated at an unthinkably large $238,596 billion and upwards. It is several thousand times greater if we choose to use antimatter.

Further, John Eades, a former senior scientist with CERN, in his March/April 2012 Skeptical Inquirer article “Antimatter Pseudoscience”, lays down the reasons why antimatter based propulsion will never be technologically feasible.

Black Hole of wealth. One down three to go.

Continue reading “Only One Interstellar Travel Community Will Succeed” »

I do not regret voting for this President and I would and will do it again. However.……I am not happy about our space program. Not at all. One would think there would be more resistance concerning the privatization of space and the inferior launch vehicles being tested or proposed. Indeed there would be objections except for a great deception being perpetrated on a nation ignorant of the basic facts about space flight. The private space gang has dominated public discourse with very little answering criticism of their promises and plans.
This writer is very critical of the flexible path.

It is a path to nowhere.

Compared to the accomplishments of NASA’s glory days, there is little to recommend the players in the commercial crew game. The most fabulous is Space X, fielding a cheap rocket promising cheap lift. There is so little transparency concerning the true cost of their launches that one space-faring nation has called the bluff and stated SpaceX launch prices are impossible. The Falcon 9, contrary to stellar advertising, is a poor design in so many ways it is difficult to know where to begin the list. The engines are too small and too many, the kerosene propellant is inferior to hydrogen in the upper stage, and promising to reuse spent hardware verges on the ridiculous. Whenever the truth about the flexible path is revealed, the sycophants begin to wail and gnash their teeth.

The latest craze is the Falcon “heavy.” The space shuttle hardware lifted far more, though most of the lift was wasted on the orbiter. With 27 engines the faux heavy is a throwback to half a century ago when clusters of small engines were required due to nothing larger being available. The true heavy rocket of the last century had five engines and the number of Falcon engines it would take to match the Saturn V proves just how far the mighty have fallen.

Continue reading “Flexible Path Flim Flam revised” »